Dear Prime Minister, On the release of the Judge Richard Goldstone’s report: “Human Rights in Palestine and other Occupied Arab territories – Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict” A/HRC/12/48 (15 September 2009), I write to ask that the Australian government support its recommendations in the United Nations. After an intensive six-month inquiry, based on dozens of interviews and investigations, this United Nations mandated report is consistent with the findings of two significant reports issued by Amnesty International, five reports issued by Human Rights Watch and reports issued by a number of Israeli-based human rights organizations. It is not only Justice Richard Goldstone’s own impeccable record as former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda that lends credibility to the report but the fact that there is an agreement across all reports that civilians were targeted and the damage wrought by Israel was of such a degree that, while Palestinian groups were also guilty of war crimes it was overwhelming clear the vastly greater proportion and serious level of destruction was that meted out by Israel on the population of Gaza effectively held captive and unable to flee to safety. The report shows that Israel targeted civilians many of whom sought shelter in UN buildings as well as civilians who were carrying white flags, and systematically targeted the infrastructure much of which was for civilian purposes and calculated to effect maximum longstanding damage and suffering to the entire population of Gaza. Other reports also came to the same conclusions: that the Palestinians were not using hospitals to hide Hamas officials; there was no evidence that the ambulances Israel targeted were carrying Hamas militants or ammunition and most significantly there was no evidence whatsoever that Hamas was guilty of using human shielding whereas there is significant evidence that it was Israeli soldiers who were guilty of using Palestinians as human shields. This United Nations fact-finding mission found Israel “punished and terrorized” civilians in its three-week assault on Gaza from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009 and cited strong evidence that Israeli forces committed “grave breaches” of the Geneva Conventions. The figures – more than 1,400 Palestinians, about a third of them women and children, killed in the assault against thirteen Israelis deaths – along with the comparative level of destruction shows a grossly disproportionate response to what Israel claimed was an act of self-defence. What is of grave concern is that contrary to Israel’s claim that is was acting in self-defence and was not targeting civilians intentionally, the findings of the report indicate that the people of Gaza as a whole have, and are still being, targeted not only by the nature and intensity of the Gaza military operation “Cast Lead” but by the punitive siege and blockade that was in place prior and subsequent to it. The report concludes that : “what occurred in just over three weeks at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 was a deliberately disproportionate attack designed to punish, humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability.” This is a shocking indictment but hardly surprising for those of us who are aware of a long and ongoing history of violations against the Palestinians and who support the struggle of Palestinians for their inalienable right to self-determination in their homeland, which has long been denied them. Australia as a member state of the United Nations should be fully supporting the report’s recommendations. As the report notes public statements justifying the use of disproportionate force, attacks on civilians and the destruction of civilian property as a legitimate means to achieve Israel’s military and political objectives “not only undermine the entire regime of international law, they are inconsistent with the spirit of the United Nations Charter and, therefore, deserve to be categorically denounced.” The report also found that Israel’s continuing occupation was the fundamental factor underlying violations of international humanitarian and human rights law and that “the harsh and unlawful practices of occupation, far from quelling resistance, breed it, including its violent manifestations”. Australia along with other member states should be calling for the implementation of the binding UN resolutions that speak to the ending of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and the Palestinian people. Not only is the ongoing dispossession of the Palestinian people allowed to go on unchecked as evidenced by the continued illegal settlement construction and building of the Wall on occupied Palestinian land, but also the criminal siege and blockade continues to wreak its devastating effects so that recovery from the unacceptable destruction of Gaza and its people is made impossible. Justice Goldstone’s report is a significant contribution in taking steps to redress these omissions and failure to protect the Palestinian people and to restoring faith in the means civilized society has to prevent further violations but it requires our governments to support its recommendations.

by Richard Falk “So why did the Israeli government boycott the commission? The real answer is quite simple: they knew full well that the commission, any commission, would have to reach the conclusions it did reach.”Uri Avnery (Israeli peace activist, and former Knesset member), “On the Goldstone Report” 19 Sept 2009 Richard Goldstone, former judge of South Aftica’s Constitutional Court, the first prosecutor at The Hague on behalf of the International Criminal Court for Former Yugolavia, and anti-apartheid campaigner reports that he was most reluctant to take on the job of chairing the UN fact-finding mission charged with investigating allegations of war crimes committed by Israel and Hamas during the three week Gaza War of last winter. Goldstone explains that his reluctance was due to the issue being “deeply charged and politically loaded,” and was overcome because he and his fellow commissioners were “professionals committed to an objective, fact-based investigation,” adding that “above all, I accepted because I believe deeply in the rule of law and the laws of war,” as well as the duty to protect civilians to the extent possible in combat zones. The four-person fact-finding mission was composed of widely respected and highly qualified individuals, including the distinguished international law scholar, Christine Chinkin, a professor at the London School of Economics. Undoubtedly adding complexity to Goldstone’s decision is the fact that he is Jewish, with deep emotional and family ties to Israel and Zionism, bonds solidified by his long association with several organizations active in Israel. Despite the impeccable credentials of the commission members, and the worldwide reputation of Richard Goldstone as a person of integrity and political balance, Israel refused cooperation from the outset. It did not even allow the UN undertaking to enter Israel or the Palestinian Territories, forcing reliance on the Egyptian government to facilitate entry at Rafah to Gaza. As Uri Avnery observes, however much Israel may attack the commission report as one-sided and unfair, the only plausible explanation of its refusal to cooperate with fact-finding and taking the opportunity to tell its side of the story was that it had nothing to tell that could hope to overcome the overwhelming evidence of the Israeli failure to carry out its attacks on Gaza last winter in accordance with the international law of war. No credible international commission could reach any set of conclusions other than those reached by the Goldstone Report on the central allegations. In substantive respects the Goldstone Report adds nothing new. Its main contribution is to confirm widely reported and analyzed Israeli military practices during the Gaza War. There had been several reliable reports already issued, condemning Israel’s tactics as violations of the laws of war and international humanitarian law, including by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and a variety of respected Israeli human rights groups. Journalists and senior United Nations civil servants had reached similar conclusions. Perhaps, most damning of all the material available before the Goldstone Report was the publication of a document entitled “Breaking the Silence,” containing commentaries by thirty members of the Israel Defense Forces who had taken part in Operation Cast Lead (the Israeli official name for the Gaza War). These soldiers spoke movingly about the loose rules of engagement issued by their commanders that explains why so little care was taken to avoid civilian casualties. The sense emerges from what these IDF soldiers who were in no sense critical of Israel or even of the Gaza War as such, that Israeli policy emerged out of a combination of efforts ‘to teach the people of Gaza a lesson for their support of Hamas’ and to keep IDF casualties as close to zero as possible even if meant massive death and destruction for innocent Palestinians. Given this background of a prior international consensus on the unlawfulness of Operation Cast Lead, we must first wonder why this massive report of 575 pages has been greeted with such alarm by Israel and given so much attention in the world media. It added little to what was previously known. Arguably, it was more sensitive to Israel’s contentions that Hamas was guilty of war crimes by firing rockets into its territory than earlier reports had been. And in many ways the Goldstone Report endorses the misleading main line of the Israeli narrative by assuming that Israel was acting in self-defense against a terrorist adversary. The report focuses its criticism on Israel’s excessive and indiscriminate uses of force. It does this by examining the evidence surrounding a series of incidents involving attacks on civilians and non-military targets. The report also does draw attention to the unlawful blockade that has restricted the flow of food, fuel, and medical supplies to subsistence levels in Gaza before, during, and since Operation Cast Lead. Such a blockade is a flagrant instance of collective punishment, explicitly prohibited by Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention setting forth the legal duties of an occupying power. All along Israel had rejected international criticism of its conduct of military operations in the Gaza War, claiming that the IDF was the most moral fighting force on the face of the earth. The IDF conducted some nominal investigations of alleged unlawful behavior that consistently vindicated the military tactics relied upon and steadfastly promised to protect any Israeli military officer or political leader internationally accused of war crimes. In view of this extensive background of confirmed allegation and angry Israeli rejection, why has the Goldstone Report been treated in Tel Aviv as a bombshell that is deeply threatening to Israel’s stature as a sovereign state? Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, calling the report “a mockery of history” that “fails to distinguish the aggressor and a state exercising the right of self-defense,” insisting that it “legitimizes terrorist activity, the pursuit of murder and death.” More commonly Israel’s zealous defenders condemned the report as one-sided, biased, reaching foregone conclusions, and emanating from the supposedly bastion of anti-Israeli attitudes at the UN’s Human Rights Council. This line of response to any criticism of Israel’s behavior in occupied Palestine, especially if it comes from the UN or human rights NGOs is to cry “foul play!” and avoid any real look at the substance of the charges. It is an example of what I call ‘the politics of deflection,’ attempting to shift the attention of an audience away from the message to the messenger. The more damning the criticism, the more ferocious the response. From this perspective, the Goldstone Report obviously hit the bullseye! Considered more carefully, there are some good reasons for Israel’s panicked reaction to this damning report. First, it does come with the backing of an eminent international personality who cannot credibly be accused of anti-Israel bias, making it harder to deflect attention from the findings no matter how loud the screaming of ‘foul play.’ Any fair reading of the report would show that it was balanced, was eminently mindful of Israel’s arguments relating to security, and indeed gave Israel the benefit of the doubt on some key issues. Secondly, the unsurprising findings are coupled with strong recommendations that do go well beyond previous reports. Two are likely causing the Israeli leadership great worry: the report recommends strongly that if Israel and Hamas do not themselves within six months engage in an investigation and followup action meeting international standards of objectivity with respect to these violations of the law of war, then the Security Council should be brought into the picture, being encouraged to consider referring the whole issue of Israeli and Hamas accountability to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Even if Israel is spared this indignity by the diplomatic muscle of the United States, and possibly some European governments, the negative public relations implications of a failure to abide by this report could be severe. Thirdly, whatever happens in the UN System, and at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the weight of the report will be felt by world public opinion. Ever since the Gaza War the solidity of Jewish support for Israel has been fraying at the edges, and this will likely now fray much further. More globally, a very robust boycott and divestment movement was gaining momentum ever since the Gaza War, and the Goldstone Report can only lend added support to such initiatives. There is a growing sense around the world that the only chance for the Palestinians to achieve some kind of just peace depends on the outcome over the symbols of legitimacy, what I have called the Legitimacy War. Increasingly, the Palestinians have been winning this second non-military war. Such a war fought on a global political battlefield is what eventually and unexpectedly undermined the apartheid regime in South Africa, and has become much more threatening to the Israeli sense of security than has armed Palestinian resistance. A fourth reason for Israeli worry stemming from the report, is the green light given to national courts throughout the world to enforce international criminal law against Israelis suspects should they travel abroad and be detained for prosecution or extradition in some third country. Such individuals could be charged with war crimes arising from their involvement in the Gaza War. The report in this way encourages somewhat controversial reliance on what is known among lawyers as ‘universal jurisdiction,’ that is, the authority of courts in any country to detain for extradition or to prosecute individuals for violations of international criminal law regardless of where the alleged offenses took place. Reaction in the Israeli media reveals that Israeli citizens are already anxious about being apprehended during foreign travel. As one law commentator put it in the Israeli press, “From now on, not only soldiers should be careful when they travel abroad, but also ministers and legal advisers.” It is well to recall that Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions calls on states throughout the world “to respect and ensure respect” for international humanitarian law “in all circumstances.” Remembering the efforts in 1998 of several European courts to prosecute Augusto Pinochet for crimes committed while he was head of state in Chile, is a reminder that national courts can be used to prosecute political and military leaders for crimes committed elsewhere than in the territory of the prosecuting state. Of course, Israel will fight back. It has already launched a media and diplomatic blitz designed to portray the report as so one-sided as to be unworthy of serious attention. The United States Government has already disappointingly appeared to endorse this view, and repudiate the central recommendation in the Goldstone Report that the Security Council be assigned the task of implementing its findings. The American Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, evidently told a closed session of the Security Council on September 16, just a day after the report was issued, that “[w]e have serious concerns about many recommendations in the report.” Elaborating on this, Ambassador Rice indicated that the UN Human Rights Council, which has no implementing authority, is the only proper venue for any action to be taken on the basis of the report. The initial struggle will likely be whether to follow the recommendation of the report to have the Security Council refer the issues of accountability to the International Criminal Court, which could be blocked by a veto from the United States or other permanent members. There are reasons to applaud the forthrightness and comprehensiveness of the report, its care, and scrupulous willingness to conclude that both Israel and Hamas seem responsible for behavior that appears to constitute war crimes, if not crimes against humanity. Although Israel has succeeded in having the issue of one-sidedness focus on fairness to Israel, there are also some reasons to insist that the report falls short of Palestinian hopes. For one thing, the report takes for granted, the dubious proposition that Israel was entitled to act against Gaza in self-defense, thereby excluding inquiry into whether crimes against the peace in the form of aggression had taken place by the launching of the attack. In this respect, the report takes no notice of the temporary ceasefire that had cut the rocket fire directed at Israel practically to zero in the months preceding the attacks, nor of Hamas’ repeated efforts to extend the ceasefire indefinitely provided Israel lifted its unlawful blockade of Gaza. Further it was Israel that had seemed to provoke the breakdown of the ceasefire when it launched a lethal attack on Hamas militants in Gaza on November 4, 2008. Israel disregarded this seemingly available diplomatic alternative to war to achieve security on its borders. Recourse to war, even if the facts justify self-defense, is according to international law, a last resort. By ignoring Israel’s initiation of a one-sided war the Goldstone Report accepts the dubious central premise of Operation Cast Lead, and avoids making a finding of aggression. Also, disappointing was the failure of the report to comment upon the Israeli denial of a refugee option to the civilian population trapped in the tiny, crowded combat zone that constitutes the Gaza Strip. Israel closed all crossings during the period of the Gaza War, allowing only Gaza residents with foreign passports to leave. It is rare in modern warfare that civilians are not given the option to become refugees. Although there is no specific provision of the laws of war requiring a state at war to allow civilians to leave the combat zone, it seems like an elementary humanitarian requirement, and should at least have been mentioned either as part of customary international law or as a gap in the law that should be filled. The importance of this issue is reinforced by many accounts of the widespread post-traumatic stress experienced by the civilians in Gaza, especially children that comprise 53% of the population. One might also notice that the report accords considerable attention to Gilad Shalit, the one IDF prisoner held by Hamas in Gaza, recommending his release on humanitarian grounds, while making no comparable suggestion to Israel although it is holding thousands of Palestinians under conditions of harsh detention. In the end, the Goldstone Report is unlikely to break the inter-governmental refusal to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza or to induce the United Nations to challenge Israeli impunity in any meaningful way. Depending on backroom diplomacy, the United States may or may not be able to avoid playing a public role of shielding Israel from accountability for its behavior during the Gaza War or its continuing refusal to abide by international humanitarian law by lifting the blockade that continues to impinge daily upon the health of the entire population of Gaza. Despite these limitations, the report is an historic contribution to the Palestinian struggle for justice, an impeccable documentation of a crucial chapter in their victimization under occupation. Its impact will be felt most impressively on the growing civil society movement throughout the world to impose cultural, sporting, and academic boycotts, as well as to discourage investment, trade, and tourism with Israel. It may yet be the case that as in the anti-apartheid struggle the shift in the relation of forces in the Palestinian favor will occur not through diplomacy or as a result of armed resistance, but on the symbolic battlefield of legitimacy that has become global in scope, what might be described as the new political relevance of moral and legal globalization.Richard Falk is an American Jewish professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, writer (the author or co-author of 20 books), speaker, activist on world affairs, and an appointee to two United Nations positions on the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Australian: “Israel bid to scuttle war crime report” by Abraham Rabinovich It is clear a massacre happened in Gaza and it is to Justice Richard Goldstone’s credit that he did not let his support for Israel stand in the way of carrying out his UN mandated investigation. The furious reaction of Israeli officials to Goldstone’s report steers well clear of actually dealing with the contents of his report. Not a single allegation the report makes is actually refuted by the Israeli government. Israel did everything in its power to hinder its progress and now is seeking to demonise it. But the criminality of what happened in Gaza has been established by numerous reports each coming to the same conclusion that there is a case to answer. Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, using the argument that the world should oppose its findings that formal charges should be brought because other countries will also find themselves similarly charged highlights the hypocrisy of a “one rule for them and another for us” world we are increasingly coming to accept as the norm. It is to be hoped that finally the impunity with which Israel has oppressed the Palestinians for the last six decades, culminating in what happened and is still happening in Gaza – with the inhumane siege and blockade, will be coming to an end. If not it is dark days ahead for everyone.

Despite its outrage, Israel has not disputed any single allegation contained in a bombshell United Nations report released on Tuesday, according to its author, Richard Goldstone, in an interview the same day. “There hasn’t been any attempt thus far to deal with the contents of the report at all,” insisted the former South African justice, who was appointed to head the UN Human Rights Council’s investigation of the assault last winter that left some 1,400 Palestinians dead by mid-January. Goldstone, an expert on international law and the laws of war, was chief UN prosecutor for the Yugoslavia and Rwanda post-conflict international criminal tribunals in the early 1990s, and later chaired the international independent panel on Kosovo. After a six-month inquiry, his UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict released a stream of allegations on Tuesday against Palestinian armed groups and Israel’s military, accusing both of war crimes, but singling out Israel for specifically targeting “the people of Gaza as a whole.” While opting not to address the task force’s charges, Goldstone explained over the phone on Tuesday, Israeli spokespersons and ministers attacked the report as a concept and criticized its authors just minutes after receiving the document, and despite that it totaled nearly 600 pages. Indeed Israel’s immediate response was to attack the report’s perceived bias, a tactic perhaps necessitated by the UN’s failure to provide advance copies to Israel’s representatives in Geneva, or to Hamas in Gaza, until less than an hour before Goldstone began addressing reporters, according to one HRC official. “Both the mandate of the Mission and the resolution establishing it prejudged the outcome of any investigation,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry insisted in its own statement to Ma’an. However Goldstone dismissed those and other denunciations from Israeli officials, particularly remarks alleging bias by the prime minister’s spokesman, Mark Regev, which he “found disappointing because it sounds to me like he hadn’t read the report.” “I certainly have every confidence that any reasonable person would regard the report as being even-handed, and looking into all relevant allegations on all sides,” Goldstone said, countering continuous allegations that he set out to blame Israel from the beginning. “I think that’s for objective people to judge,” he added, before moving on to one of the more bizarre allegations distributed by the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, that Hamas officials joined his team throughout its investigation in Gaza.‘Hamas didn’t follow us’ “You know, this allegation keeps being made,” Goldstone said, even though his report accused Hamas in unmistakably clear language of war crimes and crimes against humanity for its targeting of Israeli civilian population centers. “It is absolutely without any truth at all.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry had claimed that “at every stage of their visit to Gaza the Mission members were accompanied by Hamas representatives,” citing unspecified Palestinian media reports. “If so, this was clearly a major obstacle to obtaining genuine evidence.” However Goldstone insisted that “Hamas didn’t follow us at all,” much less “at every stage” of the visit. “They were nowhere near any of the interviews we held, and there was just no question; there was no issue.” He added, “Had they attempted in any way to do that, I would have found that objectionable and I would not have accepted it – but it just didn’t happen.” Although he said Hamas never tried to harm the investigation, Israel refused to cooperate with the UN mission, forcing Goldstone and his team to enter the besieged coastal strip via Egypt’s crossing, and forcing Israeli victims to testify in Geneva.Team’s findings unanimous On Tuesday, the ministry explained in a statement why it opted to obstruct the team, citing a resolution establishing the inquiry that Israel considered “one-sided” and that “prejudges the outcome of any inquiry.” “Prior to any investigation, it determines that Israel has ’caused massive violations of human rights’ and accuses Israel of targeting medical facilities and systematically destroying Palestinian cultural heritage,” the statement said. “It does not accuse the Hamas of any violations.” “It was for this reason that many distinguished individuals who were asked to head the Mission refused,” the statement went on to say. “One of them was [former Irish president] Mary Robinson,” the former high commissioner for human rights often the target of Israel’s ire, but who nevertheless refused a seat on the mission due to what she called a one-sided nature of the preliminary mandate. But what the ministry failed to mention, according to Goldstone, was that the fact-finding mission’s mandate was changed, before the team began, to a targeted investigation of all violations of law committed “at any time” during the Gaza assault, “whether before, during or after.” “The mandate Mary Robinson refused was not the mandate I accepted,” the South African justice explained. “It’s comparing apples and pears.” In any case Goldstone, who is Jewish and somewhat well-respected in Israel, urged the country’s leaders to respect his findings and act accordingly by investigating its own actions rather than elements of perceived bias on the part of the UN team. “I can vouch for the independence and the integrity of all the members of the mission,” he said of his four-member group. “All the findings were made after a lot of debate between the four of us but we ended up, I’m happy to say, with unanimity.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday rejected a United Nations report alleging Israeli war crimes during its three week offensive in Gaza last winter, warning world leaders that they and their anti-terror forces could be targets for similar charges. Netanyahu made the remarks while speaking to Israeli TV stations on the occasion of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, which begins Friday. He said the UN report ignored Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza and the Palestinian rocket attacks that preceded Israel’s invasion, adding that lessons must be learned for future agreements with the Palestinians. “I am telling international leaders: You are telling us that you support our right of self defense. Don’t tell us that after the next agreement, tell us now. Reject the findings of this commission,” Netanyahu told Channel 2 TV. “Come out now, condemn this report and act to quash its consequences now,” he went on to say. The report of the UN commission, headed by South African justice Richard Goldstone, faulted Israel for civilian deaths in Gaza. Israel charged that Gaza’s Islamic Hamas rulers were responsible for placing rocket launchers and forces in crowded neighborhoods. About 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the three-week conflict. The report also criticized Hamas for firing rockets at Israeli civilians. Netanyahu called on the world to oppose the conclusion that formal charges could be brought against Israeli soldiers, officers and leaders as a result of the Gaza war. He said it was a blow to the fight against terrorism and warned that other countries could find their soldiers and leaders in the dock as the result of anti-terror operations. Late Thursday evening, Netanyahu spoke with Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, asking for his support in curbing the effects of the Goldstone report. Netanyahu stressed that the report’s conclusions compromise Russia’s capability to combat terrorism, as well as Israel’s. Earlier Thursday, a U.S. diplomat criticized the United Nations Human Rights Council for giving an “unacceptable” mandate to the fact finding mission in the Gaza Strip. Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Washington has had “serious concerns” about the mandate given to the Goldstone led four-member mission by the Geneva-based council. The U.S. officially took its seat in the 46-member body in early September. “We have long expressed our very serious concerns about the mandate given by the Human Rights Council prior to our joining it,” Rice said in her first reaction to the findings by Goldstone on Tuesday. “We view the mandate as … one-sided and basically unbalanced,” she said. She also objected to Goldstone’s recommendations, including one for the 15-nation Security Council to investigate and refer the war crimes to the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Rice urged both Israelis and Palestinians to look to the future in order to resolve their conflict.

When I visited Gaza last May-June, the destruction was so overwhelming and the sense of arbitrary punishment so high that I found myself using the word "persecution." It was clear to me that these people had been targeted as a people; the assault was an effort to diminish their life spirit in every way possible, including destruction of the family unit. What I saw reminded me of what I had heard about the Jews in Warsaw and in Germany and Austria in the runup to the Second World War. Those Jews were persecuted; and these Palestinians were too. One of the surprises of the Goldstone report for the UN Human Rights Council[PDF] is that it too talks of "persecution" as a recognized crime against humanity and says that Israel is likely guilty of this charge. "Finally, the Mission considered whether the series of acts that deprive Palestinians in the Gaza Strip of their means of sustenance, employment, housing, and water, that deny their freedom of movement and right to enter and leave their country, that limit their access [to] a court of law and an effective remedy, could be considered persecution, a crime against humanity." If you read the report– and I’m halfway thru–you see why they reached for this word. I will avoid mention of the killing of human beings. Other events plainly shocked the investigators. There is the case of the chicken farms that were "systematically flattened" by armored bulldozers, killing 31,000 chickens, 10 percent of the egg production for Gaza. Then there is the destruction of the Hamada Brothers flour mill, the only flour mill in the Strip–after the other two were forced to close for lack of supplies. The mill was warned on two occasions that it would be struck, and on each occasion the Hamadas called associates in Israel, where they are licensed to do business, and determined that no attack would be forthcoming. Though they evacuated their 50 employees. Then on the night of January 9 the mill was struck by several missiles and then by helicopters. The most important machinery was destroyed. The mill is still not able to operate, 9 months later. The Goldstone mission found the Hamada brothers entirely credible. It asked Israel what was the purpose of the destroying the one mill that could produce the most basic staple of the Palestinian diet. The Israelis refused to respond. The commission concluded that the "wanton" destruction of the mill had only one purpose, to "put an end to production of flour in the Gaza Strip." These are simple facts. They constitute a "grave" breach of international human rights law. These scenes were so shocking to the Goldstone mission that it extended its consideration of the Israeli persecution of Palestinians to the Israelis-only roads in the West Bank, and to the law that allows Jews from around the world to go there and take land from the Palestinians, with impunity. How long can that impunity last? Our own country now seems to be standing with Israel in its disgraceful dismissal of this compelling report. Yet I am sure this cold account will be read for decades to come, as Jewish history. When I was in Gaza, the persecution struck me as biblical, something that you read about in one of the horrifying stories of the Old Testament. The Goldstone mission saw the same Gaza I did.

The United States has “serious concerns” about a U.N. investigator’s report accusing Israel and Palestinians of war crimes during their Gaza war, the U.S. envoy to the United Nations said on Thursday. “The United States is reviewing very carefully what is a very lengthy document,” Ambassador Susan Rice told reporters. South African jurist Richard Goldstone unveiled the report in New York this week. “We have very serious concerns about many of the recommendations in the report,” Rice said. The Goldstone commission said both the Israeli army and Palestinian militants had committed war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity, during the December-January war in the Gaza Strip. It said both had terrorized and killed civilians. It urged the U.N. Security Council to refer the allegations to the International Criminal Court in The Hague if either Israel or Palestinian authorities failed to investigate and prosecute those suspected of such crimes within six months. Israel had criticized the investigation from the start and refused to cooperate with a mission whose mandate it said was “clearly one-sided.” Both Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas rejected the 575-page document. Goldstone’s mission was organized by the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council, a body Israel and the United States have long criticized for what they say is its anti-Israeli bias. Earlier this year, the United States successfully ran for a seat on the council, vowing to try to change the U.N. rights body from within. Under President Barack Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, the United States had boycotted the panel. ‘UNACCEPTABLE’ Israel has rejected international criticism of an offensive it said was launched to curb Hamas rocket attacks on its towns. Israel says it is investigating allegations but has not yet found cause to prosecute any of its soldiers. Rice said the Human Rights Council’s approach to the Gaza war investigation was deeply flawed. “We have long expressed our very serious concern with the mandate that was given by the Human Rights Council prior to our joining the council, which we viewed as unbalanced, one-side and basically unacceptable,” she said. She also rejected one of the key recommendations in Goldstone’s report — that the Security Council should now take up the matter. Rice made clear that Washington saw no point in the 15-nation council even discussing the report. “The appropriate venue for this report to be considered is the Human Rights Council,” she said. Western diplomats said temporary council member Libya was interested in debating the Goldstone report. As a result, they said, the council might have to engage in a symbolic discussion of it but would almost certainly take no action. Rice said the focus should be the future. “This is a time to work to cement progress toward the resumption of (Israeli-Palestinian peace) negotiations and their early and successful conclusion,” she said. Obama might meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly next week to restart stalled peace talks. (Editing by Alan Elsner)

ISRAEL last night launched a massive diplomatic campaign aimed at ensuring Israeli officials were not brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, following the publication of a UN report accusing the Jewish state of committing war crimes during its incursion into Gaza in January. The report drew a furious reaction yesterday from Israeli officials who called it "nauseating" and a victory for terrorism.The report also called the firing of rockets and mortars by Palestinian groups into Israeli cities in the years leading up to the incursion a war crime.Reports said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, President Shimon Peres and Defence Minister Ehud Barak would telephone many of their counterparts around the world in an attempt to blunt the report.They will stress that the report is one-sided, that it rewards terrorism and that it sets a precedent that will make it difficult for any country in the world to defend itself against terror, Ha'aretz reported.Israel's diplomatic efforts would focus on the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - but would also give priority to members of the European Union, because of their influence in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the paper said.The Israeli leadership fears one recommendation in particular - that the UN Human Rights Council submits the report to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, which could lead to charges being brought against senior Israeli officials involved in the war.The report by a commission headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone warned that both Israel and the Palestinians might be brought before the International Criminal Court unless they carried out credible investigations of the charges raised in the 575-page document. Palestinian spokesmen welcomed the findings regarding Israel but said it was unjust to blame the Palestinians. Both sides said the report failed to distinguish "between aggressor and victim", each citing itself as the victim.Despite its seemingly even-handed findings, the weight of the report falls more heavily on Israel which, as a state, could suffer serious political damage.It also may find itself inhibited in the future if it wishes to carry out military action that would involve civilian areas, such as another round in Gaza, or its attack three years ago in south Lebanon in response to a Hezbollah incursion into Israel."A country considering attacking the nuclear reactor in Iran," wrote political commentator Aluf Benn in Ha'aretz, "and thereby opening itself to rocket fire from Lebanon and Gaza in response, will have to take into account whether the world will give Israel another opportunity for a severe, crushing response."Israel had refused to co-operate with the UN commission established by the Human Rights Council in Geneva, a body dominated by Third World countries and accused by Israel of consistent anti-Israel prejudice.In calling in January for an investigation, the original HRC resolution blamed Israel for "massive violations of human rights", a determination before the investigation had even begun which, Israel said, exposed the council's bias.Justice Goldstone, an eminent jurist, refused to accept the HRC invitation to head the investigation until its mandate had been expanded to include the firing of rockets and mortars by the Palestinians into Israel. Justice Goldstone would appear to be immune from charges of anti-Israel bias since he is Jewish and has personal ties in Israel.By refusing to participate in the investigation, Israel offered no response to the charges against it made by Palestinians before the commission.Unlike Israel, Hamas co-operated with the UN body.Among the instances of alleged Israeli war crimes cited in the report was the targeting of a mosque where 15 people were killed in prayer, an "intentional" attack on a hospital and seven instances of civilians being shot while waving white flags.Israel maintains that its troops often put themselves at risk to help Palestinian civilians out of the line of fire.A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Yossi Levy, termed the report "nauseating and one of the most disgraceful documents in the long collection of shameful documents put out by the United Nations".Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said that by equating terror and the response to terror, the commission was making a mockery of international law. It is not clear if Israel will investigate the allegations against it in order to avoid having them brought before the International Criminal Court.In any case, it hopes that the US will exercise its veto if need be to prevent the charges being passed on to The Hague.